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shelter with only one tent half.

hello. I am going to be buying a shelter half soon, and can only afford one at the time. can anybody tell me ways to make shelter with only one shelter half and the appropriate stakes, string, etc? I have used the search funtion and nothing comes up about HOW to make them. I have considerd parding up with someone, but i am autistic, and that sort of thing would just be too much for me. I am not trying to be picky about it, just the way i work.

1) Make a lean-to: One side staked to the ground, the other raised as high as you desire with two sturdy sticks/branches and 1-2 guide lines coming off each branch for support.
2) Use it as a small fly, tied above you to trees/saplings.
3) Use it as a blanket.
4) Lean two branches against appropriately spaced trees or along a fence, and tie the shelter half over the branches (similar to lean-to).
5) Dig a slit trench/hole and put the shelter half over it. (Never said it was the easiest way)

Rather than string, I'd advise using twine or better for strength. Knowing a few knots is a good idea, too.

I've simply wrapped up in one shelter half as a bedroll. It's warmer than a lean-to, and will keep you reasonably dry in weather.

Rob Weaver
Pine River Boys, Co I, 7th Wisconsin
"We're... Christians, what read the Bible and foller what it says about lovin' your enemies and carin' for them what despitefully use you -- that is, after you've downed 'em good and hard."
-Si Klegg and His Pard Shorty

There is a great picture I have seen before of a unit camped in a field surrounded by a fence. While the majority of the tents were paired up and in company streets, there were one or two that were pitched on the fence as a lean-too.

I used one tent half at a cavalry training weekend during the month of March some years ago. The idea is to use it as a lean-to in the manner of a wind break. An improvement would be to construct a wall or more from bales of straw. Just stack the bales one the side opposite the tent-half, and at one or both ends if you have enough bales. Or you could get some old fence boards and make a makeshift wall.

Lean to.....in the woods you can often find a tree trunk, or low branches to tie TWINE (not string) around and keep one edge (hopefully the leeward, not the windward, side) up off of the ground allowing clearance for your body. the other edge you then stake or attach to branches/trunks lower to the ground (or at ground level).

Bring a rubber blanket for anti-dew and a heat trap.....also anti rain drops in a deluge.....

Remember that cotton is not weatherproof.....rather, it's the canvas fabric fibers swelling with moisture that tightens the drill\weave and begins the water shedding process....so an angle to the canvas and don't touch the inside of the tent helps shed the drenching.

RJ Samp
Horniste! Blas das Signal zum Angriffe!
"But in the end, it's the history, stupid. If you can't document it, forget about it. And no amount of 'tomfoolery' can explain away conduct that in the end makes history (and living historians) look stupid and wrong. "

hello. I am going to be buying a shelter half soon, and can only afford one at the time.

You only NEED one.

THEY only had one in most cases (that was all they were issued).

Unless you plan on being a Sergeant, as a grunt, you only need one shelter half.

And from my own experience, they're worthless except for a dew cloth: they leak when it rains, no two seem to fit together right, and they're just more weight to march with, or if you don't march, another thing to get lost in the truck/van/trunk.

The last shebang I built, the rain pooled in the center, leaked through the edges, and didn't keep us much drier than if we'd slept out in the rain.

A additional gum blanket is more sensible: one for a ground cloth, one for a dew cloth. Some J clips and you have an instant poncho, too.

Bill Cross
Proud Member of The Rowdy Pards

'In the end, it's the history, stupid. If you can't document it, forget about it. And no amount of tomfoolery can explain away anything that makes history (and living historians) look stupid and wrong."

hello. I am going to be buying a shelter half soon, and can only afford one at the time. can anybody tell me ways to make shelter with only one shelter half and the appropriate stakes, string, etc? I have used the search funtion and nothing comes up about HOW to make them. I have considerd parding up with someone, but i am autistic, and that sort of thing would just be too much for me. I am not trying to be picky about it, just the way i work.

please help.
caleb courtney
30th indiana vol.

Search for "shebang." You can set it up and sleep under it as many ways as you can think of and, none of them are wrong. IMHO, fold it in 3rd's lay it on the ground, sleep on it and cover up with your blanket and then your gum.

"Grumpy" Dave T.

"Biggest problem is, at most "reenactments," nobody knows what their "historical" job was. And, in most cases the privates are worse off than the NCO's and Officers." - Deceased